Writing and Selling Your Second Book

Many authors are writers by heart. Writing, not book marketing, is their passion, so once the first book is published, an author may find himself disconcerted with promoting the first book and not having time to write the second. However, a second book is an integral part of marketing yourself, so finding the time is paramount.

Whether you are traditionally published or self-published, once your first book is out in public, you as the author have to commit a great deal of time to marketing it. This commitment can be exciting and exhilarating, but it can also be exhausting and time-consuming. You may be more comfortable wearing your writing cap than the marketing one, or you may find yourself putting so much time and energy into promoting your first book that you don’t have time left over for the second book. You need to find a healthy balance between writing and marketing, but you do need to write that second book. (For reasons why, see my previous article “Why You Need More Than One Book.”)

Here are some tips for how to write the second book, what to write about, and finding the time to write it.

Finding Time to Write the Second Book

The optimal time to write the second book is soon after you finish the first book. If you are going to publish your book traditionally, you’re going to have a lot of waiting time—waiting for agents or publishers to respond to your queries, and then, if your book is even accepted for publication, waiting roughly another year for it to be published. You probably have two years from when you finished the first book until you have to market it if you are traditionally published. Those two years you can spend working on the second book.

However, if you self-publish your book, you may be wise to wait to publish the first book until you have the second done, or at least a complete rough draft. Learning the ropes of book marketing is a tremendous learning curve that can consume all your time with that first book so be prepared by having the second book ready to go to print rather than trying to do marketing and writing at the same time.

Whether traditionally publishing or self-publishing your book, if you are writing a sequel or a series especially, you may not want to publish the first book until the others are written. One reason is so you can go back and make changes to the first book. You might decide while writing the last book of your trilogy that your main character needs a reason for a certain behavior, a reason stemming from something in her childhood. If you haven’t already published the first book, you can easily go back and revise to insert the details in book one to make book three stronger. Another reason to write your entire series before publishing it is that when readers realize you’re writing a sequel, they will anticipate the future books. You want to build momentum then by bringing out your books relatively close together, maybe a year apart at most. Authors who write sequels and publish books three or four years apart are likely to lose readers’ interests and sales. I know many authors who have had readers tell them they won’t read the first book until all three are published because they want to read them altogether, so the sooner you get that whole series published, the sooner you’ll be reaping the profits of your book sales.

Choosing the Second Book’s Topic

For the second book, choose a topic that is different but similar to the first. If your first book was a fantasy novel with a quest, then the second novel might be a fantasy book but with a romance rather than a quest plot. If you wrote a historical novel, you might want to write a regular history book. If your first book was about overcoming fear, your second book might be about overcoming obstacles, or achieving your goals.

You want your second book to be different enough that people won’t feel it’s a rehash of the first book, but close enough that it will appeal to the audience that bought the first one. The differences allow also for cross-selling purposes. For example, a biography of President Theodore Roosevelt may lead readers to seek out your novel about Theodore Roosevelt, and vice-versa. If you are writing non-fiction, you might even work in references to your first book in the footnotes or main text. Without making it come off as a sales pitch, if you let readers know you have another book that may interest them, it is likely to sell two books for you.

That said, whatever topic you choose for your second book, you never know if people might enjoy one book enough to read your other book, whether on the same topic or not.

Balance: One Step at a Time

Whether or not you follow my advice, a second book will help you sell more books. Therefore, you need to find the balance between marketing and writing. Too often writers assume they must carve out hours and days to write books, when in truth fifteen minutes or half an hour a day, five hundred words or one single page daily will be enough to produce a book in a year or less. Surely you can carve out that much time, even if only three or four days a week. The important thing is to keep at it. Even slow progress is good progress. That second book will give you staying power in the book world and make it easier for you to sell your first book.

Find the time and follow through on writing the second book. You’ll never regret it.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

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Comments

Oh, how true, this advice! It comes too late for me (wrote the first, published it, marketed it, am writing the second AND still marketing the first – it’s exhausting but MUST all be done; I feel like I’ve acquired a sudden severe case of ADHD – Hmm, which project do I work on today? Twitter? Award announcements? No wait, I must write! But first I’ll choose a cover image and write some back cover copy, and then a new chapter on Book Two and then blog a bit and then …) so TAKE HEED OF IRENE’S WORDS OF WISDOM, those of you who are on your first book. Your readers await you and they want timely consistency from your books.

I am a newly published author and I must totally agree that promoting my first book is time-consuming and a bit overwhelming, however worth every bit of sweat and blood! I however have an advantage because after my first novel “Unforgiven” I started my second novel, “Innate Sacrifices” while searching for a publisher. My second book is now complete and my third novel is a third completed. I have every intention of extending myself to the limits so that I can reach my goals and dreams! It is certainly worth it!